anchors in time
by Rhodanum
Summary: "I do not need," Elarion murmurs, bridging the last of the small distance between them and pulling on Aaravos' collar, making him bend down and nearly stumble in the middle of the dance, "the gift of far-sight to chart the course of my own destiny, master Archmage."


**Disclaimer:** All characters and settings portrayed in this work of fiction belong to _Wonderstorm_. I'm merely fooling around with the characters and will put them back with as little wear and tear as possible.  
**Character(s):** Aaravos, Elarion, Original Characters  
**Relationship:** Aaravos/Elarion  
**Rating:** M  
**Author's Note:** Head over to my **AO3** profile (same username as here) for the full story, without the smutty bits excised.

* * *

**anchors in time**

* * *

He comes to Augury Gate after the long rains of summer, with the first notes of a long, warm autumn on his heels. He comes on foot, cloak and leather boots covered with the dust of the long road, setting sun nearly hidden behind the Karaís mountains, their peaks perpetually covered in ice and snow. He comes dressed in dark, simple robes, bearing no crown on his brow and no glittering gold or jewels upon his person, looking to all and sundry as yet one more pilgrim. Yet there's still enough to make him recognizable, for eyes than can see. One of the men in the fields races back to town and thus, he is received by the hetman himself, with salt and bread, as is proper custom.

_'Lord Aaravos', _they call him. _'Aaravos Human-Friend' _and he is as polite and gracious as ever, pulling off his dusty hood, pressing one hand over his chest and bowing in greeting. Young children watch him with shy curiosity from behind their mothers' aprons. The rest of the town stops to gawk but momentarily, otherwise caught up in the frenzy of a festival.

He knows the thundering of horse-hooves long before it reaches his ears, knows what he will see long before one of the sentries points to the red horizon. The great advantage and the great failing of far-sight is that there is no _true _surprise, only the inevitability of _'what-will-be' _and the many possible and less possible roads which lead there. He has seen flickers of this moment before and will see them many times more, in many different shapes, many different times. So he gently, politely refuses the offer to come inside and instead walks toward the west gate, eyes trained on the horizon.

Aaravos witnesses them just as the sunlight dies, coming down from the mountains at a breakneck pace, atop their horses. A sharp whistle pierces the air, as the hunting party rides toward town, kicking up a small storm of dust behind them, one lone figure at the lead.

_"Elarion. Daughter of No One, from Nowhere," _as she'd claimed, with a cheeky bow in his direction, the very last time they had seen each other face-to-face. He _knows _her, almost as well as he knows himself, knows the look in her dark eyes and the sound of her voice and the lines on her palms and the way she smiles and scowls and curses and laughs, wild and free and unrestrained.

The other hunters guide their horses to a slow gait, as soon as they reach the western gate, but she does not. Instead, Elarion digs her heels into the stallion's sides, making the animal surge forward. With practiced motions, she unslings her recurve bow and pulls out an arrow from the quiver at her side, holding it between two fingers. The muscles in her arms tense and flex, as she pulls back the bowstring and nocks the arrow, taking aim.

He should, perhaps, move away or raise a kinetic shield in front of his face, with the tracing of a few well-known sigils. He does neither of these things — and not because of far-sight or any other Arcanum at his disposal. Aaravos has never seen this moment before, not in this particular form and shape, even though she once told him that she would go through with it. And this sends a _thrill _right through him, a thing of deep, resonant notes in his bones.

Elarion's features are drawn with lines of unyielding determination and her mane of tangled hair flows in the wind —_ the same as at Dol-Karam, when it falls free from its many braids, stained with red, dark fire in her eyes, his own teachings on her lips. _

Aaravos sees her take in a quick breath, before she releases the arrow. The projectile flies through the air, zips right between his horns, mere finger-widths away from his hair, before embedding itself right in the tree behind him, vibrating with released energy.

Elarion pulls hard on the reins, stopping only several arm-spans away from him — a wide, ferocious smile on her dust-covered face, dark eyes filled with the sweetness of victory.

"I told you that when next we meet I would be skilled enough to fire an arrow right between your horns, did I not, Lord Aaravos?"

"And so you did." He smiles at her, warm and open, as if no time at all has passed since they saw each other last. And indeed, for Aaravos it has been but a small span, a very short intermission in his already long life. For Elarion, however… she is human and like all others of her kind, the passing of merely a few years has brought with it monumental changes. Gone is the gawky, bony child, still somewhat unsure of her place in the world, replaced with someone far closer to the cusp of adulthood, corded muscles dancing under dark skin, self-assurance in every step . She jumps out of the saddle and motions for her horse and weapons to be taken away.

Elarion is still short, the top of her head barely reaching his collar-bone, all of sixteen summers in her boldness and audacity, as she throws herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his middle. The other hunters are struggling mightily to cover up their laughter, while the guards up on the gate look positively _aghast. _Aaravos gives them a placating smile, his own arms going around Elarion's middle. Allowances should always be made for the young and the bold and the fearless, those unafraid to seek and to _act _.

"You should have come back sooner", she says, voice muffled by his robes, sounding remarkably _petulant _for someone who, mere minutes ago, had been at the lead of an entire hunting party. Aaravos smoothes down the messy hair on the top of her head, now that she still permits him such childhood liberties.

"I would have come, if I could have."

Aaravos can feel her scoffing at this, but she doesn't fight him, relaxing into the embrace. They stay like this for long minutes, tangled up in each other under the darkness of twilight, before Elarion pulls away and looks at him from head to toe. It is… a remarkably scrutinizing gaze.

"You Startouch elves never age, do you?"

Ah, there it is. That bold, blunt directness, that charmed him right from the first.

"Not in the way humans or other elves might think of aging," he says, with a graveness entirely at odds with the small smile on his face, as Elarion takes his hand and leads him back into town.

The hunting party's spoils have already been taken away for preparation and the entire place is even more of a flurry of activity. Aaravos' arrival coincides with the festival of First Harvest, a week when the humans celebrate the earth's bounty with song and dance and feasting. He's attended such celebrations hundreds of times, content to sit among the humans and openly enjoy their food, their music and their merriment. Elarion pulls harder on his hand and Aaravos lets her guide him toward the plaza, where the first notes of the evening's songs can already be heard.

"Dance with me," she demands on an imperious tone, head held high, eyes glittering in the light of the bonfire at the center of the plaza. Rather than a colorful frock of linen or soft wool, like many of the other girls and women of Augury Gate, Elarion is still dressed in her hunting leathers. Her hair falls in a dark mass over her back, instead of being pinned up and twined with ribbons and sprigs of evergreen.

"Is this how such things are done now?" Aaravos teases, but she's having absolutely none of it.

"You owe me a debt for not sending even one letter by crow, Lord Aaravos."

"And I am to pay for my omission by being your dancing partner for the night, my lady of Nowhere?"

"We will see if it's sufficient," Elarion offers, leading him to the spot where several people have already started dancing to the jaunty tune set by a small group of minstrels.

Dancing for the people of Augury Gate and the other communities in the Karaís highlands is no elegant, ethereal, affair, as Aaravos has learned. Far from the soft, flowing motions of his Moon-born kindred, whose Nexus is a mere one hundred leagues away, as the crow flies north, these hardy mountain-folk dance as if they mean to shake the very Earth down to its foundations. They stomp their feet over stone dales, cheering and shouting and whistling when the music is loudest, linking hands and moving in an ever-quickening, ever-tightening circle, laughing at whatever winded soul cannot keep up with the mad rhythm and has to pull out.

Elarion guides Aaravos right to the ring-dance and he comes willingly, linking hands with her and a short, portly man to his left, allowing himself to be swept up by the people's enthusiasm and open cheer. He has done this many times before, danced with thousands of partners all across the villages and hamlets and towns where the humans gather to be among their own kindred. Now he knows the steps as if they were taught to him from birth, right along with his far-sight and the secrets of the distant stars.

His dance-partner throws her head back and laughs, kicking up a clod of dirt with her boots. Her right arm is almost entirely slung over Aaravos' shoulders and she shamelessly nudges right into him with every change in the rhythm. Aaravos shakes his head, silver hair falling in his face at the wild tempo, idly wondering what the Council of Exarchs would make of this — Aaravos the Archmage, Aaravos of the Six Primal Sources, already skilled in his arts before many of them were even a mote of possibility… dancing and cavorting about with humans, as is his want. There is a reason, after all, why he spends less and less time in the white spires of Ara'alor, the secrets of its libraries long-plundered, its people content on refined, genteel stagnation. There is awe and sometimes fear in the eyes of the humans, yes — but there is also a _desire _there, an unquenchable flame of _want_, unfulfilled and unsatisfied with half-steps and half-measures and _'this cannot be done.' _He saw it in the eyes of the first human he ever met, out on the road from the gate to the Star Nexus. And he sees it in Elarion's eyes now, as undeniable as the firm hold of her hand, the warmth of her body against him.

"Come," she says and Aaravos shakes his head and huffs out a little breath… and he follows, because there is little he can deny her. Elarion unlinks them from the rest of the ring and walks right into the center, closest to the bonfire, its light casting a play of flickering shadows over her features. He saw her face like this for the first time, half-hidden in moving shadow, when he was all of ten summers old, still under his mother's careful tutelage, the Star Nexus stretching out all around them. The beauty of a hundred millions stars, surrounded by a cold, dark void. Beautiful in its own way, a promise of infinity.

They dance close to the fire, among the flying embers. _They dance in the fortress at Al'Adun, polished sandstone under their feet, when the war rages. They dance among the stars, at the heart of the Nexus, as bare as the day they were born, Elarion's arms around him, her eyes reflecting the vast darkness of space. _

"Have you seen this in your divinations?"

She asks the question on a low voice, for his ears only, when their twists and turns bring them close together, boldly pressing her leather-clad body against his front. Aaravos raises both of his eyebrows at her audacity, but he doesn't push Elarion away, doesn't pull back from her touch, one he has felt a hundred times, across a hundred different visions, always left confused, always wanting to know _more _and asking himself — _why? _Why this particular human?

He has his answer now, perhaps. Or at least a part of it. Elarion seems to find him far less of a mystery, an arcane puzzle to be deciphered, an ancient force to stand in fear of and more… a person to be _wanted _with no hesitation and no concept that she might ever be unworthy of such a thing. Aaravos has taken human lovers, many of them across these centuries, yet there was always a flicker of a shadow even in the middle of joy and pleasure, an expression that sometimes seemed to say _'why me?' _A quiet awe that pulled up one last wall, which not even his most careful ministrations could bring down.

There is no such hesitation, no such dismissal of her own worth in Elarion's eyes. Just as there never was even when he first found her, half-starved and nearly all-frozen, looking at him with defiance in her emaciated face.

"I have," Aaravos answers softly, turning around on his heel, letting his silver hair fly around him like a halo, right hand linked with Elarion's own. "Long before your foremothers were even born."

She smiles, bold as brass, leaning into him when they come together again. As if there could have never been any other answer. There are times like this when, for an impossible second, Aaravos can almost believe that she has the gift of the stars as well, with all the certainty and belief that her eyes can see every bend, every crossroad in the path ahead. But there is no trace of the Star Arcanum within her, nor any connection to the other Primal Sources, he would have _felt _it. In this, she is no different than any other human.

"Teach me the ways of magic."

Elarion says it again, the half-plea, half-order she's given him a dozen ways before, every single time they met. The same ravenous hunger burns in her as when she first saw him performing a spell, a mere mote of light made to bloom between his fingers, sent to dance in front of her young face.

And Aaravos answers as he always does, spinning in time with her. "It is not the way of the Primals and the price is more than one human can pay. Your kindred were consumed by it before I could do anything to help them."

He saw humans die as their body cracked and crumbled and turned to ash. Or as it boiled and melted, skin and muscles and bones warping into foul-smelling black ichor that stained everything it touched. All of them eager, all of them entirely willing, open to any and all experimentation, pushing themselves past the point of no return. Only one was clever enough, tenacious enough, with a will strong enough to _dominate _the force flowing through his body as through a conduit and keep it from annihilating him utterly. And then he went and vaporized himself in a mundane laboratory accident, a mixing of reagents that should have never gone together.

"So sure that such will be my fate, Lord Aaravos?"

"I… have foreseen it."

_Elarion, howling in rage and agony, black scars like cracks over ashen skin, bone-white hair lank over her shoulders, clawing at him, snarling and cursing at him, ordering Aaravos to let her go._ One of many futures, many nodes of inevitability, fixed points in an ever-flowing landscape, the future folding into the past and both crashing against the present. Yet also the only path down which he sees the possibility of _more _— the creation of both their hands spreading to those willing to seek, willing to know and to act.

A dark, beautiful gift to humanity.

"I do not need," Elarion murmurs, bridging the last of the small distance between them and pulling on Aaravos' collar, making him bend down and nearly stumble in the middle of the dance, "the gift of far-sight to chart the course of my own destiny, master Archmage."

She kisses him as if she's done it a thousand times over, hungry and passionate and demanding, her nose very nearly colliding with his, teeth sinking into his bottom lip, tongue pushing for entry, one of her hands tangling itself in his silver hair. Were they between four walls, Aaravos suspects Elarion would have gone straight for one of his horns.

This is the limit of far-sight — its gifts are ghostly images, hollow and distant like the cold stars lining the cosmos, their light an echo of what once was. The _future-memories _of touch, of sound, of taste are enough in the act of divination, laughably inadequate when compared with the predicted moment, as it comes to him on the river of time. Aaravos has kissed and held and loved Elarion hundreds of times in his visions, pale shadows when matched against their fulfillment, her lips against his in the present. There are his Moon-born brethren who misuse their spells to live perpetually in the past, just as there have been Startouch elves who lost themselves utterly to the twisting roads of the future, becoming unmoored in time. For a moment, Aaravos feels the danger himself, the memory-yet-to-be, expected and wanted for so many centuries, overlapping on the present, until there seems to be no more distinction between them.

Then Elarion bites down harder on his bottom-lip and he comes back to himself, his mind willing to separate_ 'will happen' _from _'has happened' _once more. He returns her kiss, matching her intensity and passion, sweeping her up for the last steps of the dance, so her feet are no longer touching the ground. He will pay for it, no doubt, Aaravos thinks drily. There is no need for far-sight to know _that_.

They pull back when the last notes of the cimbalom fade away, Elarion's face flushed and her dark eyes reflecting the flames.

"Teach me, Lord Aaravos."

"So now you believe Archmages can be bought with a kiss and a dance, do you?"

Other humans would have shrunk back at the bone-dry exasperation in his tone, but all Elarion does is smile, the expression no less tenacious for the blush in her cheeks and the full redness of her lips.

"Pursue all possible avenues, until one yields results. Is that not what you taught me, Lord? Abandon the falsehood of_ 'impossible' _and _'cannot be done' _and search for the questions that haven't been asked, the answers overlooked." Keen to fully make her point, Elarion leans in close once more. "And for that matter… why should kissing you be coin for barter, when I can do it merely because I _want _you?"

Even with the future-memory of this moment and all others like it, hundreds of different iterations across multiple realities, Aaravos can't stop the shiver that flows right down his spine. So clever and unafraid, throwing his own words back at him!

Over the long years, he took as many pupils as lovers, yet achingly few of them dared challenge him and his hypotheses and testing methods, too afraid of properly arguing with a Startouch elf, much less a master of all six Primal Sources. There is no such fear in Elarion, just as there is no hesitation, fingers still entangled in his hair, stroking the soft strands. She is young and still yet lacking in experience… but all the same, Aaravos finds himself more than happy to be seduced, embers dancing around them like dying stars.

"I have but one condition," he murmurs, luminous eyes catching her night-dark ones, even as the notes of the new melody vibrate in his bones and they begin to move in tandem once more.

"Name it, Lord."

"Just _'Aaravos'_, if you will," he says — and Elarion's smile is, for a moment, far fiercer than all the light and blazing fury of the Fire Arcanum.


End file.
